Lamb & Flag, Oxford

For other uses, see Lamb & Flag (disambiguation).

The Lamb & Flag
Lamb & Flag pub
Location within Central Oxford
General information
Address	12 St Giles',Oxford, OX1 3JS
Coordinates
Opened	c.1695
Owner	St John's College, Oxford

The Lamb & Flag is a pub in St Giles' Street, Oxford, England. It is owned by St John's College, and profits fund DPhil student scholarships.

The pub lies just north of the main entrance to St John's College, who manage it. The Lamb & Flag Passage runs through the south side of the building, connecting St Giles' with Museum Road, where there is an entrance to Keble College to the rear of the pub.

Since St John's took over the management of the pub in 1997, a Lamb & Flag scholarship has been instituted for graduate students.

The name of the pub comes from the symbol of Christ as the victorious Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) of the Book of Revelation, carrying a banner with a cross, and often gashed in the side. This is also a symbol of St John the Baptist, and so is emblematic of ownership by the College of St John the Baptist.

Popular culture

It is believed that Thomas Hardy wrote much of his novel Jude the Obscure in this pub. In this novel, the city of Christminster is a thinly-disguised Oxford, and it is thought that a pub that appears in certain passages of the novel is based on The Lamb & Flag. The pub also featured frequently in episodes of the ITV detective drama Inspector Morse. The Inklings (a literary group including C.S. Lewis) also met here, although they are more commonly associated with the Eagle and Child, which also stands on St. Giles, directly opposite the Lamb & Flag.

Additionally, the pub is mentioned in P.D. James' book "The Children of Men".

External links

• Lamb & Flag Inn